


Romance is overrated

by Captain_Snark



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Short One Shot, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 19:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15588612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Snark/pseuds/Captain_Snark
Summary: Harry doesn't understand romance until he kisses Draco and he kind of does.aka this whole fic is based around me thinking who needs romance when you have magic





	Romance is overrated

**Author's Note:**

> *Rises from the grave to post a drarry fic and retreats back into the ground*

Harry never really understood love or romance. He had never known much love growing up, there isn’t much room in a closet for anything but a creeping sense loneliness and the claustrophobic feeling of being unwanted. It never made sense to him.

Dudley would have crushes and aunt Petunia would gush for weeks. There’d be a girl sitting next to Dudley on the bus for a field trip that Harry didn’t get to go to and uncle Vernon would elbow aunt Petunia in the side. A brow wiggling up and down on what little forehead space uncle Vernon had available and a weird smile on his face that got squished by his moustache. A girl would play with Dudley during playtime or lunch and Dudley would turn the colour of a tomato as if he’d been hexed or eaten some strange candy Fred and George had given him.

Sure, Harry was a bumbling mess of a kid and an even worse teenager at the best of times. He wasn’t particularly any better when a girl would talk to him. Yet it was more of an ‘I am awkward and have no idea what to do here’ rather than an ‘oh shit a girl is talking to me and she is cute’ kind of thing.

When he was eleven and found out there was such a thing as magic. He was one wand flick away from doing anything an eleven-year-old could imagine. Love didn’t seem as exciting as magic and it never really had.

Magic is exciting.

He revels in this power forming inside of him and shooting out to make feathers float. He sends post by owl. He has an actual live owl. There are griffins and werewolves and they’re both terrifying, but they’re fantastic. There are goblins, who by no means are much to look at, but they are real. Harry feels like he’s dreaming half of his first year in Hogwarts.

Romance in comparison, falls flat.

He kisses Cho when he’s 16 and it’s not magic. It’s just kissing. It’s exciting, because he’s a teenage boy and he feels like he’s doing something scandalous. But to be fair, kissing is probably one of the least scandalous things the boy who lived has ever done, so the feeling fades rather quickly.

Ginny likes him and he likes Ginny. She’s nice, cool, and wicked good at Quidditch. She’s Ron’s little sister and how could he ever face either of them if he breaks her heart? So they date. They go on dates. They go to the movies or quidditch games and hold hands. Harry really has no idea what he’s doing, but apparently it’s romantic so he must be doing something right.

Ron and Hermione get together. Harry just doesn’t understand it, because when they’re not arguing they’re poking fun at one another. Ron tells him it’s teasing and Harry thinks muggle dictionaries must be different from wizard dictionaries.

He breaks up with Ginny after a year. Ginny tells him she understands. Harry doubts she really does, because how do you explain to someone that you just don’t get it. Ron doesn’t excommunicate him, so he feels like at least he has that going for him.

It’s a month after that that Ron forces him to go out, because apparently he has been ‘sulking’. Harry is now sure wizard and muggle dictionaries differ. So he goes out, because saying no to Ron is like eating a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans in the latest vomit-inducing addition. There’s a rotten wood flavour now that’s all the rage.

They end up at some bar with buy one get one free butterbeer and too loud music. It’s nice. Ginny’s trying out for the Holyhead Harpies, Ron tells him, with the tone of voice one uses to address the terminally ill. Harry shrugs.

There are eyes on him for most of the night. He doesn’t know when he notices, butterbeer makes it hard to tell time.

Harry’s used to being watched. The boy who lives has been less popular the older he gets, but there are still stares and whispers. He doesn’t think much of it until Ron punches him in the shoulder, nodding his head at something behind Harry.

With all the subtlety of a dragon spewing fire, Harry turns to meet Draco Malfoy’s eyes. There’s something turning in his gut that must be a combination of too much butterbeer and the chocolate frog he had for lunch, because Harry Potter is classy and cares about nutrition.

Ron snorts loudly when Draco is the first to hastily look away.

Harry has no idea what possesses him when he tells Ron he’s going over to say hi. Ron looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. Which is something that can actually happen and was one of the stranger cases Harry has dealt with as an auror.

“Potter,” Malfoy greets him.

“Malfoy,” Harry replies, pulling out a chair and flopping down with all the elegance of a drunk elephant.

“You are aware Weasley looks like he’s about to hex me?”

Harry turns back to look at Ron who doing his best to glare Malfoy into non-existence.

“He does.” Harry doesn’t sound concerned in the least.

Malfoy scowls at him. “So you’re here why?”

It is somehow a question Harry is not prepared for. At all. So he spends half a minute practicing his dead fish impression.

“Go back to your friend. I don’t care.”

Which Harry finds very hard to believe, because Malfoy starts picking at the label of his beer, a crease set to his brow.

“No. I mean… You seemed… lonely?”

Malfoy raises a brow at him.

“And I just thought…”

“Oh you actually gave this some thought?” Malfoy asks him. Harry’s sure it fits Ron’s definition of teasing.

“Sod off, Malfoy.”

“You’re the one who came to me, Potter,” he reminds Harry, the corner of his lip curling up in a discrete smile.

“I AM drunk,” Harry supplies, tipping his beer in a cheers to Malfoy.

Malfoy seems to contemplate that. Regarding Harry with a calculating look in his eyes. His stomach is acting up again and his face feels hot. Maybe he’s actually coming down with something.

“What are you out celebrating?”

“Huh?” Harry blinks. “Oh. Oh! We’re not celebrating.”

He sips his butterbeer. “It’s just that Ginny and I broke up.”

Malfoy’s eyes widen at that before he mumbles out a ‘that sucks’ as he goes back to picking at his beer label.

“Ron thinks I’m ‘sulking’,” Harry continues using actual air quotes.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Sulking?” Malfoy asks, copying Harry’s air quotes.

“Not really,” Harry relates. He has no idea why he further elaborates. He used to hate Malfoy’s guts for most of his time in Hogwarts. They had been enemies and rivals at best. He blames it on the butterbeer when he says: “I don’t think I liked her all that much. I mean… I liked her. But I don’t get the whole romance thing. Seems kind of dumb.”

Malfoy just full-on stares at him. Harry has to wonder at this point if he actually has grown two heads and just hasn’t been aware up until now.

“Maybe,” Malfoy starts, twirling his bottle as he continues. “Maybe you’re just not doing it right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry sounds positively and absolutely offended.

“Nothing.”

“Bloody hell, Malfoy. Just tell me.”

“Maybe you’re just bad at relationships.” When Harry gives him a look, he sighs. “You’re allowed to be bad at things, you know.”

“Like what? I’m bad at kissing or something?”

“That’s not what I said, Potter.”

Harry regards him for a second. The way his pupils are slightly dilated from drinking and his cheeks are dusted in a light pink hue. His grip on his bottle of beer tightens and untightens nervously. He’s not sure if Malfoy wants to sink into the ground or hex him.

“By Merlin’s beard, just because you defeated,” Malfoy gestures with his hand, “does not mean you have to be good at everything. It’s the boy who lived not the boy who was magically brilliant at anything.”

It’s weird, because Harry thinks somewhere in the back of his brain that Malfoy has a point. But there’s a part of him that’s been there ever since he was 11 years old that just wants to prove Malfoy wrong.

So he does the next logical thing which is putting his hand on top of Malfoy’s and leaning over the table to press their lips together. Nobody has ever accused Harry of being a smart man. Least of all Malfoy.

At first he thinks he’s going to throw up. His stomach feels like it’s hurtling through time and space on a broomstick. And then Malfoy unfreezes and turns his head more to the side so their noses aren’t smashed together uncomfortably. Their lips are moving against one another. It’s weird and exhilarating.

Harry feels much like the first time he kissed Cho. As if he’s doing something scandalous that’s going to be blasted on the front page of the Daily Prophet the next morning. But there’s something else there. Something that feels a lot like when he made that window in the zoo disappear so long ago. When he was a kid and something just clicked.

It was magic then.

Maybe he’s drunk, but Harry’s convinced it’s also magic now.

Everything considered, the kiss doesn’t last very long. They break apart after what Harry feels is way too soon. Malfoy’s eyes are still closed. His face looks the most serene Harry has ever seen it. Harry thinks it’s something he could get used to.

And maybe, Harry thinks, just maybe, it is worth it to give romance another shot.

He does his best to ignore the sound of Ron yelling bloody murder in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for no other reason than my friend having a shitty day and me not being able to sleep. So... I'm a people pleaser basically.


End file.
